GM Focuses on Digital Advertising

Marek Fuchs

It should be an easy procedure, right? To take what someone else wrote and transpose it? But in the hands of the business media, even regurgitating someone else's work is occasion to confuse and mislead the savvy investor.

Take this article about General Motors(GM) and advertising from The Wall Street Journal and look at how Reuters butchered it.

Here is the Journal's headline: "GM Won't Buy Advertising Time For 2009 Oscars".

If you give in to the temptation to read only the headline, you might naturally assume that General Motors' business has turned so lame and cutbacks so severe that the company is not advertising (or, in this case, sponsoring) television's showcase events -- which means that it has obliterated its advertising ambitions. End of discussion.

As The Wall Street Journal made clear, however -- and this is key for all who want to understand car companies, television networks, newspapers or advertisers -- General Motors is not simply cutting its entire advertising budget to ribbons.

Far from it.

Pointed out the Journal, in a central development to many industries:

P/>"While GM has been under pressure to save money, the company has also been aggressively shifting ad dollars to digital marketing, such as search-related ads, and away from traditional media, according to people close to the company. They add that GM is looking to put a larger share of its ad dollars into media that offer a measurable return on its investment."

There you have the issue in all its complexity. General Motors has, like the rest of the auto industry and as the Journal made clear, "been in cost-cutting mode because of soaring gas prices." But all companies -- especially those in dire straights -- need to justify their ad dollars, and the general pits of television and newspapers, which can't be measured with any degree of accuracy beyond a finger to the wind, are not doing it for them.

There is a switch under way. End of discussion.

No sooner had The Wall Street Journal posted this article, though, than Reuters came along on the wires to repeat it. Reuters credited the Journal, sure -- though a savvy investor is always wary of these regurgitation stories.

On the odd occasion, a regurgitation story will build on the original story with some new fact or insight. But especially over the weekend -- and especially over August weekends -- such articles are more often filler. Reuters is just looking to fill a quota of articles, and if you are not adding to the article, there is only one thing left to do:

Leave stuff off.

Which is just what Reuters did here.

It did not make a fatal mistake in its headline: "GM won't buy advertising time for 2009 Oscars: report".

The lead, too, made no terrible error:

"U.S. automaker General Motors Corp. has pulled out of its longtime sponsorship of the Academy Awards, one of the biggest annual events on broadcast television, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday."

But the rest of the article kills by omission. While there is a quick reference to "a sharp downturn in automotive advertising on television," Reuters does not even touch upon how, as the Journal made clear in a point central to the article and issue, General Motors has been "aggressively shifting ad dollars to digital marketing."

Again, this should help explain to you why man traditional media outlets are struggling. Advertisers can't measure how their ad dollars are doing, so they are shifting them -- especially companies such as General Motors, which now must hold every thin dime dear.

The larger point, though, is that little good comes from an article summarizing another. And it's done a lot on slow August weekends. When you see it, look for any new material or insight added, but in most cases, play it safe. Let your fingers do the clicking, and turn your attention back to the original.

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